Prospect Park, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Prospect Park, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Prospect Park lot. Enter your address and we'll score 1,086 plants against your land's actual soil, sun, and frost.
We read public map data around Prospect Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Prospect Park — the short answer
Prospect Park, New Jersey: USDA zone 7a, about 222 days between hard freezes, across 298 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~222
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 298 acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 28°F normals: light frosts run a few weeks past them, and tender transplants usually wait 2–3 weeks after the last hard freeze.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 7a is Prospect Park's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Prospect Park's 222-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Prospect Park
Each reading below is measured for Prospect Park itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredProspect Park runs about 222 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredProspect Park sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
The zone sets which perennials, shrubs, and fruit trees live through an average winter here — a plant rated for a colder zone is a safe bet, one rated warmer needs winter protection or gets treated as an annual.
Match perennials and fruit to the zone before you buy, so nothing you plant is a gamble against the cold.
USDA PHZM 2023
The kind of country Prospect Park is in
Prospect Park sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Prospect Park's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Passaic County is mostly Northeastern Highlands. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Prospect Park
Every plant below cleared Prospect Park's own zone 7a and its 222-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Prospect Park?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 9 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Prospect Park
Spotted lanternfly documented 4 miles from Prospect Park, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Prospect Park
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Prospect Park. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 377 N 11TH STBrownfields · 1800 ft
- MANCHESTER REGIONAL HIGH SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- TILCON NEW JERSEY INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- MANCHESTER REGIONAL HIGHSCHOOLBrownfields · 2300 ft
- EASTERN CHRISTIAN SCHOOL ASSOCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- LEONHARD WAXUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- SHELL SERVICE STATION 138369Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- HALEDON EMERGENCY AMBULANCE ASSOUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- PROSPECT PARK BOROUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- HALEDON GULF 121422Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- SHOPPING CENTER @ 408 HALEDON AVENUEBrownfields · 2600 ft
- HALEDON SERV CTRUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Prospect Park's center, not your beds. Run your own address for what's upwind of you specifically.
Environmental Intelligence
The counts behind that headline — every source type on the record near Prospect Park.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Prospect Park
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Prospect Park
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Prospect Park, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Prospect Park — Superfund (121 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (388 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Prospect Park
Get exact proximity distances to contamination sources for your specific parcel — plus soil, sun, drainage, and 1,086 plant recommendations.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Prospect Park average
Your land is one point inside Prospect Park
Everything above resolves to Prospect Park as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 298 acres. Your parcel is one point inside that footprint. Slope, tree cover, a low spot that pools cold air, and what is in the soil are all resolved at the address, and none of them are visible at town scale. That is the honest boundary of this page, and the reason the next step is a reading of your own ground rather than a better local average.
Your Lot vs the Prospect Park Average
Prospect Park Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Prospect Park
- ●One soil character for all of Prospect Park
- ●Frost dates read at Prospect Park's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Prospect Park's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Prospect Park
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Prospect Park, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Prospect Park averages can't show:
We read public map data around Prospect Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Prospect Park average
How we know this about Prospect Park
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Prospect Park’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Prospect Park
When does frost risk typically end in Prospect Park?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Prospect Park typically lands around Apr 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — earlier than the light-frost dates most charts quote. That marks the hard freeze, not the last light frost — lighter frosts keep biting past it, which is why tender transplants here wait until about Apr 22.
When is the first frost in Prospect Park?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Prospect Park typically arrives around Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 26, so the watching starts about Oct 10 — about 222 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Prospect Park?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Prospect Park sees about 222 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 26, about 187 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Prospect Park?
The federal record around Prospect Park runs heavier than most — 5,762 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (3,677), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Prospect Park?
From about Oct 10 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Nov 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Nov 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Prospect Park's scale — its 7a band and its 222-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Prospect Park's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Prospect Park’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Prospect Park's own scale — its own ~222-day season between 28°F freezes, the 298 acres it covers and 5,762 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Prospect Park's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Prospect Park's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 9 and the ~222-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 5,762 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Prospect Park, the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Prospect Park's boundary and the 298 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~222-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Prospect Park sits in the Northern Piedmont — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Prospect Parklydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Prospect Park's 298 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Passaic County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Passaic County
- The growing challenges every New Jersey grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom New Jersey
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Passaic County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Prospect Park's 298 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Prospect Park you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 298 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Prospect Park-wide figureread your own land →
More in New Jersey
Wider growing context
What grows across New JerseyProspect Park sits outside our named growing regions, so New Jersey as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides